Lijit Launches Publisher Ad Network
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008A
Original post by Om Malik
Archive for the ‘Search’ Category
Context-Sensitive Search Via Blogs
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008By now most of us are familiar with Google’s PageRank algorithm, or at least the principle behind it, whereby a web page is ranked based on who else is linking to it. One key aspect of blogs is that, while a few cover just about everything under the sun, most blogs have specific areas of focus, be it art, news, politics or what have you. Such information is potentially valuable in the context of search because a blog can announce its areas of focus — keywords, in effect — that can be taken into account by search engines, which would then know what topics a specific site tends to cover.
Using existing meta tags within HTML, it would be pretty easy to create a de facto standard in which tags are used to place a blog, as well as individual posts within it, into categories or sets. For example, I used to publish a site, Telephony Design, that was specifically about telecom products and services, which would have been tagged with keywords like telecom, telecommunications, telephone systems, phone, etc.
Imagine if most blog- and site-hosting services asked you to self-describe your site with up to a few dozen keywords. Of course, you can already do this with tags, but it’s unclear to what extent search engines use this information.
In this scenario, when searching via a search engine that recognizes your tags, you could issue a query like “gore (climate)” to get search results that are optimized based on link weights from sites and blogs that describe themselves as climate-related. This isn’t the same as saying “gore AND climate,” because someone who blogs at a climate site might write something about Al Gore that’s not, strictly speaking, climate-related. Essentially this is a way of searching for a topic, as ranked by people (primarily bloggers) who write on several topics or areas of focus.
This isn’t a new idea, of course, since “meta keyword=” has been with us since the earliest days of the web. The trick is to create a subtle variation on search query syntax in which you’re asking to, in effect, “Find X within sites that are usually about Y.” It’s kind of poor man’s approach to the semantic web, but if enough sites and blogs used it, and popular search engines introduced a simple way to filter or weight search results based on it, the method should work.
An important point is that you’re not using the “meta” tag to emphasize a keyword, so your site isn’t more likely to show up if I do a search on “climate.” Instead, what the tag says is that you usually blog about “climate,” among other things. The actual keyword search is based on content elsewhere in the page, so the meta tag is just used in describing a limit set of keywords the content is usually about. Another important point is that if spiders only recognize a limited number of these tags, maybe 20 or so per domain, it will be difficult to spam search engines by stuffing hundreds of tags in a page header.
Is this a Google killer? Hardly. It seems like the kind of thing that could be added to existing search engines, Google included, pretty easily. This might seem like a trivial thing, but it should make search a lot smarter without burdening webmasters with the need to comply with an overly complex semantic web approach. This is also a simple and easily learned query style, so just as users have learned to combine keywords to improve search accuracy, they can use this approach to narrow search results by the type of source, in what amounts to a kind of fuzzy boolean search.
When it came to web services, REST won out over SOAP because of its simplicity. I think the same thing could happen here. After all, this is something even a novice web master could do in a minute — all that’s needed are a few lines of HTML.
Original post by Guest Column
Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008A
Original post by Robert Scoble
Cuil: Why I’m trying to get off of the PR bandwagon…
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008A
Original post by Robert Scoble
A new search engine appears: will you use it?
Monday, July 28th, 2008A
Original post by Robert Scoble
Will Microsoft Search use Mahalo techniques to change the game?
Sunday, June 15th, 2008A
Original post by Robert Scoble
Why Microsoft will buy Facebook and keep it closed
Monday, May 19th, 2008A
Original post by Robert Scoble
Top Online Retailers Not Showing Up in Google!
Monday, May 12th, 2008
What?!! It’s true. Many of the biggest and most popular online retailers with fat SEO budgets are not showing up for their own names or valuable keywords in Google search results. Most don’t even know it. How can this be?
All the major search engines offer a .com search engine and a number of country-specific engines, like Google.ca, .co.uk, .com.au, .fr, .de and so on. These are local search engines, and often use geo-IP targeting to show the local search engine as the default when a searcher lives outside the United States.
If you’ve never seen a localized search engine, this is what it looks like:
As you can see, a searcher has the option to restrict search results to only pages from his or her country. This is particularly helpful for searchers who are performing transactional searches - they’re looking for products to buy. Using the general “search the web” will often deliver US sites which requires the shopper to dig through the sites looking for shipping information and costs. Searching only pages from their native land, searchers can save time and discover online stores they purchase from over and over again.
The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend
Original post by Linda Bustos
Search Within A Search - Good Idea?
Thursday, March 6th, 2008In case you missed it on TechCrunch the other day, Google is now showing search boxes within SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for some of the larger online retailers like Amazon, Zappos and Office Max.
The boxes only appear for certain keywords, for example “amazon” and “shop amazon” but not “amazon books.” Zappos shows up for “zappos shoes” but not “zappos shopping.” For other sites, adding “shop” or “shopping” to the site name won’t trigger a search box at all.
OfficeMax should be pleased that this works for them but not for Staples and Office Depot, at least it makes them seem a bit more important? I noticed that Target and Walmart get a search box, but not Sears. NewEgg, Radio Shack and BestBuy get one, but not Circuit City. Ebay and Overstock also are left out, which is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Even comparison engines are either in or out. Bizrate, Nextag and PriceGrabber are in, Shop.com and Shopping.com are out. Perhaps this is a feature that Google is still rolling out in stages, or it’s just being tested. You never know if a new feature would fly unless you give it a trial run!
When you use these boxes, the results leave something to be desired. Results are not helpful without product images. And the top results are only going to lead you to the destination site’s search page for your keyword, anyway.
This could be useful if your shipping and customer service information is impossible to find with your internal site search. But top online retailers like these should already have that optimized. TechCrunch ran a reader poll and the results are close to 50/50 on whether users like the idea or not. I’m in the “nay” camp, I don’t see the value.
If these boxes were included with larger retail site listings in Google for general terms like “clock radio” or “wireless headphones” - it could give bigger retailers a click-through advantage. Anything that makes a search result stand out (like sub-category links or a Google Checkout badge in AdWords) attracts the eye and may be perceived as a more trusted result. I hope it doesn’t end up this way, unless it’s a completely level playing field - retailers large and small. But again, I don’t any value in doing so.
SEO Tip
You’ll notice the search box in the screenshot above has ” {keyword} site:http://www.domain.com ” in the search box. “Site-colon” is an advanced “search operator” that you can use to check which pages of your site are indexed by a search engine. If you want to check if a particular page is indexed, you can copy and paste that url after the “site:”
Running a site-colon check on your root domain will show all your indexed pages. If your product pages are not showing up, it’s a sign the engine is not crawling your site as deep as you want it to and you should look into your site structure or other SEO activities to ensure there are no barriers to indexing.
Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?
Free webinar: March 13th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Mike Svatek, Director, Marketing & Product Management, Baynote
Register to Attend
Original post by Linda Bustos
Google Pop Quiz
Monday, December 10th, 2007Google’s shaking up its search page for the holidays…do you notice anything different?
Is Your Affiliate Program Your Top Sales Generator? If Not…
Free webinar: Tuesday, December 11th, 9am PT / 12pm ET:
Affiliate Marketing: What Every Retailer Ought to Know
Guest Panelist: Shawn Collins, Author, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants
Original post by Linda Bustos
Why You Should Turn On Google Analytics Site Search Today
Monday, November 26th, 2007
Google Analytics recently introduced an internal site search feature to its already kick-ass free stats program — aptly named “Site Search.”
This tool works with your existing site search and is invaluable to ecommerce marketers as it gives you so much insight into customer intent and your website’s success at delivering results. For example, you can use search log data to discover:
- What keywords people search for - what’s hot and what do they want that you don’t carry
- What search refinements are made, indicating possible “Results Not Found” messages or unsatisfactory results
- What pages the searches were made from, and where users clicked to
The next 30 days is when this information will be crucial. Customers can’t buy what they can’t find. Maybe you only use the term “notebook computer case” and your customers search for “laptop bags.” You can tweak your product pages and search engine for the various ways customers describe your product until the right pages show up when you test your site.
Is Your Affiliate Program Your Top Sales Generator? If Not…
Free webinar: Tuesday, December 11th, 9am PT / 12pm ET:
Affiliate Marketing: What Every Retailer Ought to Know
Guest Panelist: Shawn Collins, Author, Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants
Original post by Linda Bustos
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